A report released by the United Nations (UN) has indicated that over 193 million people in 53 countries are currently dealing with a serious food crisis. The report, which also revealed that this number was growing at an alarming rate, explained that things would get worse if care was not taken. Further explaining the ongoing trend, the UN warned that it was a result of many factors feeding into one another.
The UN also wrote that it is clear that it was the root causes that must be tackled first and not the effects themselves. These included poverty and inequality, climate and environmental and health crises to name but a few.Released on Sunday, the 9th of May by the Global Network Against Food Crises (GNAFC), the report has already had great effects on the European Union (EU), governmental and non-governmental bodies, and an international alliance of the United Nations (UN) all coming together to tackles the issues underlying the problem. They promised to focus their attention primarily on the regions of the globe where the magnitude and severity of the food crisis exceeded local capacity and resources.
Estimates recorded in the report had 193 million people in 53 countries as victims of food insecurity in 2021, an alarming increase of nearly 40 million as compared to the figures for 2020. Furthermore, 39 out of those 53 were repeat offenders, with some having doubled in the number of people requiring urgent aid.
The conflict remained the main cause of the food shortages, said the report, and the Russia-Ukraine war had only served to expose the current interconnected food network of the globe and how truly fragile those systems were. Actions must be taken quickly if starvation was to be staved off and casualties prevented.
